1942 - 1993

South African Anti-Apartheid Hero

Chris Hani was a South African Anti-Apartheid Hero. He was a defiant freedom-fighter. He joined the ANC Youth League 1957 and was active in the Eastern and Western Cape regions before leaving South Africa in 1962 for exile in Lesotho. He returned to South Africa, following the unbanning of the African National Congress in 1990, and took over from Joe Slovo as head of the South African Communist Party in 1991. He was also an ANC NEC Member and Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Chris Hani was assassinated on 10 April 1993 outside his home in Dawn Park, East Rand. Since then, Haniville, outside Pietermaritzburg, Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg and Chris Hani District have been named in his honour.